The standard Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) bonding protocol is susceptible to looping back packets transparently when the underlying physical layer enters a loopback condition. This behavior has been shown in customer applications to cause the network feed to be disabled by a connected switch based on MAC address detection as a defense against DoS (Denial of Service). One troubling case in particular is when an entire shelf in a Multi-Service Access Platform (MSAP) such as a TA5000 from ADTRAN, INC. of Huntsville, Ala., has its network feed disabled as the result of a single DS1 tributary entering a loopback condition. In some networks, a proprietary BACP (Bonding Aggregation Control Protocol) loopback detection will automatically disable links in an EFM group that are looped back. However, any packets that are received prior to the BACP packet will pass through the EFM engine towards the network.